WhatsApp Update : Now Share Your Live Location With Your Friends

The Facebook-owned instant messaging service WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging services that is used by more than 1 billion users. WhatsApp not only allows its users to send texts, it also enables them to send attachments, like pictures, images, and documents. You can even send a location using the messaging service and now with the new WhatsApp update, the company has given the people more reasons to come back to the app multiple times a day. The new WhatsApp update enables the users to share your location live to the people they choose. Unlike the one-time location share that was present in WhatsApp, the new update actually dynamically send your location to your friends and keeps updating it even when running in the background.

The new live location feature of WhatsApp is a short-term service and it’s limited in duration and the best part is that your location is shared at the chat, which means you can either send your live location to a single contact or directly to a group.

How can you turn on the new WhatsApp update?

Fist of all, you need to update your existing version of WhatsApp to the latest version. Once you’re done with that open a chat and try clicking the attach icon if you use an Android device, or click on the plus icon present in the left bottom if you use an iPhone. Then select location in the menu that comes. If you select the location you’ll find the option of share live location, you need to select it. You’ll then be prompted to manually choose the duration of time for which your location share would be active. The present options allow you to share your live location for 15 minutes, 1 hour, and 8 hours. Now you might be thinking that this new feature would mean that you cant share your one-time location anymore, which is wrong because you can still use the old location sharing feature as well.

WhatsApp also lets you stop sharing your live location manually within a chat at any time you wish to. You’ll also now get a new option in the Account Privacy Setting, which will provide a brief overview of the chats that you are sending your live location updates to.

How does the new live location WhatsApp update work?

Once you share your location with someone it’ll show up in the WhatsApp chats as a thumbnail showing the initial location and a live until time. Once the person you’re sharing your location with chooses view live location option then he/she can see the current location of yours in their chat. You’ll also have the option to change to satellite or terrain view while looking at a shared live location. Furthermore, the update also allows you see the live traffic updates as an overlay, which can be very useful when you’re waiting for someone.

If multiple people are sharing thier live location with you, then below the map you can see the name of the users and their last updated data in a list view. All you need to do is just click a name from the list to look at their last updated location. You can also refresh the location yourself and look for the latest location updates of the people sharing location. If you want to see the locations shared in a group all you need to do is just open the info of the group and you ‘ll find the number of people sharing their location in the group. Just click on the name of the person and you’ll get their recent location update.

WhatsApp hopes that this new WhatsApp update provides utility to people in cases where they are coordinating with each other to meet up at a place. Like the normal chats, the live location feature is also end-to-end encrypted, which means you can be sure that nobody can hack into your live location feed.

How does this feature fare when compared with others?

The live location feature in the new WhatsApp update is not a new one since another instant messaging service called Telegram already has this feature. Facebook’s own messenger service enables you to choose locations with your friends in real time but only for an hour. Furthermore, Apple’s iMessage also lets you share your location with others and this is the only app that allows you share your location with others without any limitations. Another important app that lets you share your location is the Google Maps. Though it’s not an instant messaging service, it lets you share your real-time location with others.

Compared with all the aforementioned apps WhatsApp is hoped to do very well. You might also see the feature getting various advancements over time. At present, you’ll receive the real-time updates of people which are accurate up to 50 meters which is actually very good. However, you need to make sure that your GPS option is always on when you share your location with someone on WhatsApp. You can also expect WhatsApp to provide you more time options when it comes to sharing your location.

How does this new WhatsApp update affect your phone’s battery life?

Well, this is the most important questions that most of you would be asking now since people believe that features like these hamper the battery life of a smartphone. However, WhatsApp has claimed that the features is completely optimized to use the least battery that is needed for the feature to run. However, you could expect to see your phone’s battery drying up a little early while using the feature. The upcoming advancements of the feature might get you out of that problem with some more optimizations.

Verdict

The new WhatsApp update brings in one of the most sought-after features that could be very helpful for the people. Now only time can tell how efficiently people use this feature and if they like it or not. What do you feel about this new WhatsApp update tell us below in the comments.

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